Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou last night dramatically upped his battle with easyJet
by threatening to remove the low-cost airline’s right to the easy brand name.

By Graham Ruddick

6:15AM BST 21 Jul 2010

The founder of easyJet has told the company that it must improve its performance within 90 days or it will lose the name.

Easyjet

The tycoon published a letter on the easyGroup website last night that has been sent to easyJet. His anger relates to the punctuality of easyJet after newspapers claimed over the weekend that fewer than 50pc of its flights from Gatwick were on time in June.

In a statement, Sir Stelios criticised the previous chief executive of easyJet, Andy Harrison. He added: “I have been receiving many unsolicited complaints from members of the public and even easyJet pilots about the degree that the airline is short of crew to operate the flights it sold to its customers. Unless Mike Rake [the chairman] and Carolyn McCall [the new chief executive] do something to improve the situation for the sake of the travelling public, I am left with no option but to terminate the brand licence.”

The letter from easyGroup’s lawyers, Bird & Bird, is known as a “cure notice” under the brand licence agreement and demands easyJet improves its punctuality within 90 days.

easyJet is disputing Sir Stelios’s right to terminate the brand licence on the basis on punctuality performance.